Updates at market close

By Fergal Smith

Feb 12 (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index fell sharply on Thursday as investors worried about artificial intelligence disruption and the potential for fewer Federal Reserve interest rate cuts than previously hoped, with industrial and metal mining shares leading the declines.

The S&P/TSX composite index .GSPTSE ended down 788.91 points, or 2.4%, at 32,465.28, marking its second straight day of losses after posting a record closing high on Tuesday.

Wall Street's main indexes also lost ground as investors intensified their selloff of technology shares and fled transport stocks amid worries about artificial intelligence disruption.

"We've seen the market go up pretty steadily for the last while," said Michael Sprung, president at Sprung Investment Management. "But it's getting to point where people are beginning to have some questions and amongst them are trying to separate what are going to be the artificial intelligence winners and who are going to be the losers."

Some of the optimism associated with stronger-than-expected U.S. employment data on Wednesday faded.

"With that kind of a positive reading, it's caused people to contemplate that (interest) rate cuts are not imminent just at this point in time," Sprung said.

Dampened Federal Reserve rate cut hopes weighed on precious metal prices. Gold XAU= dropped 3%, while the materials group .GSPTTMT, which includes metal mining shares, ended 5.9% lower.

Energy also lost ground, falling 1.7%, as the price of oil CLc1 settled 2.8% lower at $62.84 a barrel on the prospect of slowing demand.

Shares of Mullen Group Ltd MTL.TO tumbled 8.9% after the logistics company missed quarterly earnings estimates. That weighed on the industrials sector, which lost 4%.

Technology .SPTTTK fell 3.7%, with shares of e-commerce company Shopify Inc SHOP.TO ending 6.1% lower. Heavily weighted financials were down 0.9%.

Sun Life Financial Inc SLF.TO shares added 6.3% after quarterly earnings beat estimates but shares of Manulife Financial MFC.TO were down 5.3% after the company reported a lower quarterly profit.

Defensive sectors helped limit overall declines, with utilities <.GSPTTUT> and consumer staples .GSPTTCS posting gains.

(Reporting by Fergal Smith and Utkarsh Tushar Hathi; Editing by Shreya Biswas and Deepa Babington)

((fergal.smith@thomsonreuters.com; +1 647 480 7446))